Family
by Cerulean Pen
Summary: Of all the things he could have found after leaving that wretched park, the last he expected was a family./ Alan/Ellie. Post-JP1. Now a three-shot.
1. I

Family

Summary: Of all the things he could have found after leaving that wretched park, the last he expected was a family./ Alan/Ellie. Post-JP1.

English Family/Hurt/Comfort Rated: T Chapters:1 Words:

**a/n: **hey yo did you guys know that electricity causes such violent seizure of the muscles that the victim is likely to break a bone before they start burning? ahead: some slightly stressful stuff, panic attacks, anxiety, mentions of death, mentions of blood/icky stuff, swearing, and some expected Murphy child coddling.

_"He left us! He left us!"_

_ "Well, that's not what I'm gonna do."_

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The doors clanged open and the light was immediate, harsh and scathing and spinning deliriously like a halo gone haywire, and the attending nurse shrieked in Spanish and the linoleum tile rushed up- -

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Doctor Alan Grant was not an affectionate man. Where others indulged themselves in emotions and sought drama like a narcotic (or stimulant, depending on who you asked), he surrounded himself with fact and realism, lining them up like a surgeon's tools. He rarely, if ever, allowed himself to become unnecessarily close with his colleagues. They were there to learn after all, not be showered with the sentimental platitudes his fellow diggers doled out in excess. How he had become intimate with Ellie was still a mystery to him. She was a woman steeped in love; a woman who radiated the metaphorical light like some sort of messiah and embraced the idea that love was what bound the entirety of humanity together. In Alan's opinion, Ellie had more than enough affection for the both of them.

She had always wanted children. The notion of having another human to lavish with fondness and adoration was a dream come true for her. Alan disliked children intensely, but he had never explicitly confided into her his fear of rearing a family. His own father had done such a goddamn number on him; the thought of following that age-old proverb and becoming a boy just like his father scared the hell out of him. Being responsible for a human and their emotional upbringing was just too much of a risk for Alan.

Which was why he audibly cringed when those two blond children came rushing up the spiral staircase. He didn't like kids. They were annoying and loud and Ellie _wanted _one, she actually _wanted _one- - _look at how they act honey, do you really want a kid like that?_

He ignored the deep, unfeigned admiration Tim regarded him with. He looked away whenever Lex smiled with a glimmer of prepubescent infatuation in her eyes. It was pretty easy until that flattened Jeep went sailing over the guardrail and Lex's heart started trip hammering into the space between his shoulder blades and the whole thing unraveled.

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The helicopter ride was nightmarish. It should have been a relief to finally unfurl his battered, bruised frame across the plastic seats and rest, and, initially, it had been.

When Alan awoke from his brief tango with unconsciousness, his shoulders were aching like a bastard and Ellie was watching him intently from the opposite bench. He still wasn't able to fully articulate how thankful he was that she had survived. Even imagining what he would have done if she had been… killed on that wretched island turned his throat to cotton and his insides to warm gelatin.

Her rutted eyes traced him. Alan glanced down at the kids, one clinging to either side of him, and smiled. _I did it, _his expression declared. _I looked out for two human lives and showed actual affection- - you should have seen me, Ellie! I could've been Father of the Year!_

If only that were so.

Then the sun went down and Lex woke up with a fever. She quickly became inconsolable, her eyes glazed with a febrile shimmer and her throat heaving as she struggled for breath. Alan had never witnessed anyone in the throes of a panic attack before, so he didn't know what to do other than stroke her back awkwardly. Ellie knelt down to her and helped her count breaths _(one, two, three- - just feel the air, don't rush, that's a good girl, just breathe.)_

Alan realized then that he had- - somehow- - become responsible for the emotional wellbeing of these children. As expected, it scared the hell out of him.

But with Ellie holding Lex's hands, both of them teary-eyed and trying to smile, and Tim still breathing steadily against him, a tiny voice in the back of his head pointed out that maybe such a responsibility was good. And that maybe he loved these kids.

Maybe he wasn't afraid to love them.

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"I hate this IV."

The needle had been plunged to an exorbitant depth and was now pulsating in his vein. His skin itched fiercely beneath the tape, which was laid so tightly that he couldn't even wedge a fingertip beneath the adhesive and scratch. If it weren't for Ellie in the wheelchair beside him, he would have gone off the deep end long ago.

They had arrived at the medical plaza just an hour before, a time which seemed much longer once he reflected on it. Returning to a world of normality, of law and reason and safety, had been quite the culture shock for him and his traveling companions. The hour saw the children being carted off to pediatrics (in spite of Alan's spirited protests), Malcolm taken into emergency surgery, and Ellie given a sedative that dimmed the glow of her face and dulled the cadence in her voice. Still, she was here and that was what mattered.

"Don't pick at it, honey." She was grinning, albeit faintly.

"It itches like hell," he mumbled, running a finger along the plastic. "I think an hour with this in is more than enough."

"Alan…" There was a touch of delirious severity to her tone that banished all thoughts of the damned needle from his mind. "On the helicopter… the kids… I think they really trust you. They _love_ you."

This threw him. He had never heard the three little words from anyone but Ellie. To think that there was more than one person on this Earth who truly appreciated him was daunting, if not somewhat pleasant. Alan squeezed her hand and ran his callused thumb across the delicate whorls of her joints and hilts. "Is that the intriguing breed of child you wanted?"

She was crying again, but her smile strengthened. "Yes, honey. Yes."

.

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The next day was better. Alan took Ellie down to breakfast and strictly monitored her intake (she had been up with nightmares after the sedative lost its power), stirring cups of weak Costa Rican coffee and pushing slightly stale triangles of toast her way. After a little nourishment, her color returned and she was able to speak without her voice trembling and eventually fading away. It was almost like breakfast in Montana, where they blew dust off their dining bowls and chatted about discoveries and grandparents and movies in the sepia, syrupy dawn light. _Almost._

In spite of his objections, Alan was coerced into a visit with Malcolm. "I don't even like the guy," he had said in the elevator, not bothering to mask his contempt.

"He was there too, Alan. He was in a lot of pain."

It had occurred to him then that Ellie had undergone something completely different in the park. She had yet to share what she had seen and done beyond the realm of raptors and Ian Malcolm. If last night's screaming was any indication, it had been downright horrific. So he quieted down and took her hand and walked into Ian Malcolm's hospital room.

The man was considerably doped up and his injured leg was encased in what seemed to be a foot of cement, but neither of these factors prevented him from cheerfully greeting them. Alan recalled the pangs of envy he had felt back before everything had gone to Hell and did his best to quell these resurging emotions. After all, Malcolm didn't mean any harm- - right? He certainly wouldn't be sweeping Ellie off her feet anytime soon, unless propped upright on crutches.

Still, Alan made a point in keeping his fingers laced with hers.

"I don't know any fucking Spanish," Malcolm admitted, mouth quirked into a lopsided smile. "There's only one translator and he's always on break. So they'll come in here and try to tell me my leg's gonna fall off and I'll just have to nod and smile like an idiot."

"Well, maybe that's a good thing," Ellie teased. Despite his jealousy, Alan silently rejoiced: her personality hadn't been taken by the park.

Malcolm chuckled and rolled restlessly onto his side so he could punch the button at his bedside. "Painkillers. The only useful thing the translator told me. It's a great machine. Whenever my leg starts hurting like a bastard, I just push the magic button and I get shot full of drugs. Really, this is the thing we outta be putting in malls and libraries." He laughed at himself again, then sobered considerably. "Kids okay? They won't tell me anything."

"We don't know much, either. Apparently, Hammond doesn't want them accepting visitors yet."

The whole lot of them rolled their eyes in unison. John Hammond was not their favorite person at the moment. Alan hadn't seen the man since last night, which was probably best considering that he had quite a few choice words for Hammond (most being "you selfish bastard").

Malcolm, freshly alleviated, smirked at them devilishly. "Who cares what the bastard thinks? Go down and see them, and tell them their grandfather is nothing more than a crazy sonavabitch. I'll come down once they take this goddamn coffin off my leg."

Alan fought tooth and nail, but he grinned at Malcolm anyway. Maybe the bastard did have a couple of good ideas after all.

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The pediatric ward was two floors down and bedecked in a sprawling mural that depicted fantastic jungle scenes. Verdant treetops lined the linoleum corridors, their peaks littered with swinging monkeys and colorful birds. It was quite beautiful, if not somewhat unsettling.

Ellie prattled on the whole way down about how excited she was to see the kids, her speech punctuated with phrases like "they're so sweet, I can't believe how sweet they are" and "I hope John stayed with them all night". Her affection for children never ceased to amaze Alan. In Montana, she would always stop to coo over capped babies if they were out walking or start a conversation with a bored toddler at the store. Even though she had only known the Murphy siblings for all of two days, she loved them.

And- - there it was again- - so did he.

Ellie remembered just enough Spanish from college to ask the attending nurse a fragmented, poorly-tensed question. After a few minutes of awkward conversation, she returned with a room number. "Poor woman was so confused. I don't think she even knows we aren't supposed to be here."

"It doesn't matter: we have Malcolm's blessing, don't we?"

Hammond had acquired a private room for his grandchildren. Like the hallways, it was splashed in bright greens and rich beiges: the very antithesis of the whitewashed cavern Alan had shared with Ellie yesterday. The room had two beds and even a clunky television that had probably seen much better days.

Alan had barely gotten the door open before someone thrust their arms around his waist and buried their face into the front of his hospital shirt- - Lex. He smoothed his callused hand down her crop of blonde curls, which had been washed and combed since he had last seen her. "Hi, Lex. How're you?"

"Much better," she replied once she peeled herself off of him. She looked much better too: the gash on her forehead had been stitched into a tiny railroad track and her bruises were already fading into yellowish oblivion. With the blood and grime scrubbed away, Alan noticed that she was quite a pretty young lady. In fact, with the sunlight framing her gently sloping cheeks, she looked like Ellie.

"Doctor Grant!" Tim threw himself at Alan's hip, considerably more energetic than his sister. Alan chuckled and wrapped his free arm around the boy.

"Well, hi Timmy. Seems like you're feeling better."

"Yeah. But my hands itch." His palms had practically been entombed in bandages and gauze; his left ear and ankle were similarly wrapped. Alan took one of Tim's hands in his own, examining it with a clinical eye and feeling each exposed finger for signs of a break. He had been fretting over the fence's effects on the boy ever since arriving and was almost elated to see that he would be okay. "And it's boring here."

"Yeah," Lex chimed in from Ellie's side. "It's so boring without anyone else to talk to. Grandpa comes sometimes, but he's mostly busy."

"He says we can go back home soon!"

"Did he…" Alan had knelt down on the tiles (which were painted vivid jades and candy pink: a yellow brick road compared to the Kansas plains upstairs) and was gingerly applying pressure to Tim's ankle. "Can you put weight on it?"

"Some. Hey, Doctor Sattler- -"

"Ellie's fine, honey," the woman interrupted happily. Lex giggled and Tim ducked his head, blushing.

"Okay, Ellie. Um, Grandpa said that your mom called and that, um, she left a message for you downstairs."

"Thank you, honey." She squeezed his shoulder affectionately before approaching her now upright fiancé. Her satiny lips shivered past his ear and jangled more than just his nerves. "I'll be right back. I need to tell her… I-I just need to talk to her a minute. Okay?"

"Take as much time as you need." Alan dropped a kiss on her brow, relishing the familiar softness of her skin. Her scent- - an intoxicating cocktail of jasmine hand lotion and talcum powder- - was nothing but a vestige. That was all he needed to feel safe.

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When Ellie returned, she was greeted by a sight more amusing than anything she had conjured on the elevator ride. Doctor Alan Grant- - her sullen, strong, and incurably impatient fiancé- - was braiding Lex Murphy's hair.

The girl was sitting cross-legged on her unmade hospital bed while he meticulously plaited her pretty curls into what was becoming a rather lopsided French braid. Upon catching Ellie's eye, Lex beamed proudly. "I taught him how to braid."

"Did you now?"

"Not just digging bones anymore," the man deadpanned. He wasn't particularly thrilled to imagine the earful he would get from Ellie about catering to the whims of a twelve-year-old girl. She rarely, if ever, forgot his moments of vulnerability.

Ellie seated herself in the tackily-printed armchair between the beds and sighed. Recounting what she had faced at the park had been nothing short of exhausting, even when abbreviated by her mother's gasps and exclamations of "oh, baby, you didn't!" The memory of the raptors… their clinical eyes and effluvial breath. It was enough to send her heart racing and shrink her lungs down to marble pouches.

She realized that she was attracting some worried glances and hurried to change the subject. "Where's Tim?"

"He has to get his bandages changed and do his therapy." Lex looked down at the grey blanket, suddenly upset. The procedure only reminded her of the helplessness she had been overcome by at the perimeter fence. Her brother's devastatingly still body was a worse mental image than anything she encountered on her grandpa's island.

Alan decided a distraction was in order. After all, he wouldn't know what to do if she descended into that horrible state of panic again. "I think I'm all done with this… I don't know if it's right, but..."

Lex ran her fingers down his messy handiwork and smiled faintly. "It's perfect."

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Doctor Alan Grant was not an affectionate man. But in the oppressively humid darkness of the hospital room, where he had eaten dinner with Ellie and the kids, and watched Spanish programming that made his ears ring and counted breaths for Lex after she woke up screaming and told Tim stories from the dig site until he fell asleep, he felt like perhaps this wasn't the truth.

Maybe he was an affectionate man. Maybe he did love the kids as much as Ellie.

Maybe he just needed a family of his own to understand that.

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_"What if the dinosaurs come back while we're all asleep?"_

_ "… well, I'll stay awake."_

_ "All night?"_

_ "All night."_

**a/n: ***punches wall* it's midnight and this is shit like I'm not even going to edit this fuck that. I should probably be working on my actual story instead of this, but I needed a writing exercise, which turned into a self-servicing epilogue to the stupid movie. Ughh. (PS: I totally think Lex would have some serious anxiety and panic attacks in the wake of the incident. I know I would. Jesus.)


	2. II

II

**a/n: **um. yeah. I have a lot of feelings about what transpired after where I left off originally, so instead of updating my ACTUAL story or working on my schoolwork, I'll just fucking churn out more incoherent mush centered on the endearing blond Murphy children and their temporary guardians, someone please hold me. tangent: it's a little hard to hear, but at the very end of the movie (where they're all loading up in the helicopter) when Hammond hands tim over to ellie, she's like "it's okay, it's okay" and I'm like jesus christ my children. ahead: stress, panicky stuff, anxiety, nightmares, mentions of fighting/divorce, swearing, maybe some icky stuff.

_"She said I should ride with you, 'cause it'd be good for you!"_

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In his dreams, he was always late—at the Jeep, at the fence, at the display. Something had gone awry and his fractured subconscious warped and mangled time until minutes were seconds and seconds were the space between life and death. On occasion, it was his fault: his callused knuckles squashing the delicate ribcage down into twisted spokes, his carelessness leading them directly into the Gallimimus' path, his fingers slipping between hers and the impact of her body against the carpet below.

And that was just the second night.

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The exceptionally bright Costa Rican sun had only just begun to gild the far corners of the paling sky when Alan Grant received the call.

He had been gripped in the throes of another nightmare when the ring of the telephone sounded and yanked him clear out of that verdant field and back into the pastel cavern he now called home. Slowly, he became aware of the time and the warmth at his side—Tim. Faded emeralds and grayed whites streaked crazily past him as he lifted his head and regarded the nightstand with bleary eyes. His reaching for the jangling receiver was only out of instinct and it was with the utmost confusion that he mustered an intelligible greeting.

"Grant? Terribly sorry for the early hour, but—"

"Hammond?" A hot surge of fury cleared the hazy vestiges of sleep from Alan's mind and piqued his irritation. He and Hammond weren't on the best of terms, considering the latter had all but vanished, leaving his guests to their own devices in an antiquated, foreign hospital. "Where've you been? They won't tell us a damn thing and we don't know when we're getting home."

"Again, terribly sorry, but I've encountered a bit of trouble and I need to be in California for a, uh, hearing about the park. They want me to be as thorough as possible." Hammond chuckled nervously: it was a sound devoid of humor. "A helicopter should arrive within the next day or so and take you back to the States. You and Doctor Sattler will have a jet back to Montana, I guarantee it, but I just need a wee favor from you."

"A favor?! I think we're even when it comes to favors," Alan spat. His voice, sharp with venom, grew loud, almost a shout. At his side, Tim blinked awake and gazed solemnly up at the paleontologist. Alan made a vain attempt to sedate himself; his hand went down to the boy's blondish hair, moving in a restless circle.

"Grant." The older man sounded exhausted, almost defeated. "I'm in trouble. The company's in trouble. I know that if I was with Doctor Malcolm, I'd get an earful about how he was right about the park. He was in the end. The bastard was right. I wish I had never gotten the children involved in all of this. Unfortunately, they had to suffer the expense of my carelessness and I-I know you and Doctor Sattler have grown quite fond of them. Grant, all I'm asking is that you look after the little ones. Keep up to date with the doctors and all. And once you get to California, make sure they get home safely."

Alan glanced down at Tim, who was still a touch peaked, then at the opposite bed. Ellie had fallen asleep with one arm folded over Lex, as if afraid something would separate them during slumber. What Hammond was requesting of him was hardly a favor: it was what Alan would have done in a heartbeat.

"Sure. Of course. I, um… I'm sorry for sounding so… uh- -"

"No apology necessary, Doctor Grant. You have every right to be upset with me. Hopefully… well, if things go right today, I'll have some chance to repay you. How are the children?"

"Fine. Still a little shaky, but fine. I think they're going crazy in here, though. We all are."

"Not to worry. The helicopter should be there soon. I hope to see the children once they get home. Say hello to them for me, won't you? Sorry to rush, but I've got another meeting to attend. Thank you, Grant."

The line promptly went dead. Alan returned the phone to its cradle, somewhat dazed by the strange conversation and the disorientation inherent to spending any length of time in a hospital. Across the room, the two girls remained dream-locked. Ellie was the heaviest sleeper Alan had ever met; she had once dozed through a nasty dust storm that nearly shoved their rickety trailer onto its side. He smiled at the memory of her awakening the next morning to a dune of chalky badland sand at her bedside.

"Was that Grandpa?"

"Yeah. He said we should be going home in a day or so." Alan hitched one leg over the side of the bed, tested his weight, and pulled himself to his feet. The muscles of his shoulders and lower back felt like taffy that had been stretched far beyond its limits. His pulse hammered in his temples. "You can go back to sleep, Tim."

"But I'm awake," he insisted. With considerable difficulty, Tim climbed down from the bed and picked up the shoes that had been tossed carelessly aside the night before. Alan hated the perceptible tremor in the boy's hands. "When is he coming back?"

Alan hesitated before deciding that lying wouldn't benefit the situation. "He's, uh… he's not coming back, Timmy. He's got some business to do back home."

"Oh."

If the boy was disappointed, he was doing an exceptional job hiding it. Alan glanced down again and found Tim struggling with the laces on his shoes; the man knelt down, took them from him, and quickly tied them. "But Ellie and I are going to be here the whole time. We'll look after you and Lex."

A glimmer of cautious hope brightened Tim's otherwise vacant eyes. "Really? Like in the park?"

"Yeah, Timmy." Alan struggled valiantly against the fond grin that threatened to overtake his face, then relinquished to it. The kid had already seen the fatherly side of him anyhow. "Just like in the park. Now let's say we get some breakfast."

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Alan had visited the cafeteria the previous morning with Ellie, so he knew how the system worked. However, he had also come down around nine o'clock, when most of the nurses and patients were taking their breakfast too. It was just now dawn and the place was absolutely deserted.

It was a small, dim room, packed with benched tables of imitation oak. The walls were beige paneling and the ceiling was a veritable mile of fluorescents that did nothing but cast a sickly glow on the dun interior. Two of the walls were lined with windows along their upper half that allowed little sunlight in; the other two contained the serving line and the conveyor belt snaking back into the kitchen, respectively. Returning to it only cemented Alan's initial impression that it was a rather unpleasant dining setting.

He held the door open for Tim, who could only limp so fast with his bandaged ankle, and then consulted the serving line. Yesterday, there had been a pleasantly plump Costa Rican woman serving toast and coffee; in her place was a crude sign, which someone had nobly translated into English for their North American guests. "Serve for you" it read. Alan supposed it meant serve yourself.

"You hungry, Tim?" Alan picked up two plastic trays and immediately reached for the coffee beans.

The boy nodded eagerly. "Yeah. The nurse said I couldn't have food like Lex because I was on an IV. They put a needle in my arm."

"Join the club." He tapped the pink welt on his forearm. "What do you like? Toast? Fruit?"

He nodded again and rocked on his heels as Alan went about filling their trays. When Alan was done, he took them to a nearby table.

"I'm gonna make myself some coffee. You alright by yourself?"

"Yep."

"Okay." Alan took his pouch of coffee beans over to the dilapidated maker, which was perched alongside a greasy hot plate. He took a plastic dish from the stack by the plate and filled it with water at the sink; he then set it on the hot plate and dialed it on. The rusty coil blushed tentatively. While he waited for his water to boil, Alan wandered back over to the table, where Tim was pensively rubbing his left arm instead of eating. Before Alan could inquire about it, Tim looked up at the paleontologist with a dazed, almost lethargic expression.

"My arm feels weird."

"Oh yeah?" The words plucked something at the base of Alan's chest, leaving something not unlike genuine concern to gnaw ravenously on his heart. "How so?"

"It's all tingly…"

Alan oppressed himself not to disturb the boy's bandaged fingers as he swiftly took his hands in his own. He swallowed hard against a bilious upsurge of fear. "What else feels wrong?"

"My ears' ringing…" Something about the delayed, fatigued manner of his replies rang sour with Alan and he felt that primal terror from the park well up in his gut. The terror that he could very easily lose either one of the Murphy children and that their fates were beyond his control. Tim's fate, however, was now back in Alan's hands: he was not about to lose him. His efforts in the park were not in vain.

"Come on, Tim." Alan scooped the boy up, once again surprised by how light he was, and strode purposefully towards the door. The boy didn't protest; instead, he rested his weary head on Alan's shoulder. It was an insignificant gesture that nevertheless made the man's pulse stutter as a great wave of affectionate swept over him. For a moment, Alan forgot that Tim wasn't his son and planted an uncharacteristically gentle kiss on his crown as he headed towards the ICU.

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The hospital's translator was a New Mexican intern named Raoul. Alan couldn't help but take great pity on the poor lad, who had been shuttled relentlessly from floor to floor ever since the Isla Nublar survivors arrived. While Alan liked to think of himself as fairly reticent and, therefore, in no need of translation, he hated to think what the loquacious Ian Malcolm had put Raoul through.

Raoul had been phoned down shortly after Alan brought Tim back into the ICU. The intern was currently shelling sunflower seeds over a Styrofoam cup and popping them between words. "Anyway, your friend, the glasses guy, he tells me: 'say this to them, say that to them'. And always profane too, it's like he wants to get me fired."

"He's not exactly my friend." Alan shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair and clenched his teeth as the motion lit up the small of his back with a starburst of pain. It hadn't hurt him much the day before, but now the area was practically aflame with a deep, hot ache. He wondered how much longer the doctor would be and if Ellie had woken up yet. It was nearing seven-thirty, which meant the nurse would be making her rounds with Lex's fever reducer and Ellie's painkillers.

Raoul crunched another handful of seeds, swallowed purposefully, and eyed his new companion. "You okay? Looks like you're sitting on a nail."

Alan decided not to take umbrage with this observation; after all, Raoul was a medical professional, lab coat or not. "Just some lower-back pain."

"Maybe you should get it checked out," he suggested lightly. "Bones like that usually gotta be looked at or else they heal crooked."

Fortunately for Alan, the attending physician that had admitted the whole lot of them chose this moment to reappear. He was a tall, compact man with a wide forehead and dark, kind eyes; he extended his hand for Alan to shake before launching into what could only be described as a medical tirade. Raoul could scarcely keep up with him.

"Okay, okay, um… so, that's Doctor Ramirez, blah blah… okay. So, typically after an electrical injury, there's a lot of neurological damage. Confusion, lethargy, dizziness, that kind of stuff. Almost like a concussion. In Tim's case, he's experiencing some physical symptoms as well—some tingling, loss of coordination and balance, pain—which is all relatively normal. However, there's been what we call a… what? A neurological _upset? _Let's call it a neurological development."

Alan felt vaguely sick with dread. His memory spun the image of that glazed, removed vacancy in Tim's eyes, as if the electric shock had sapped him of his youth and vibrancy. "A development?"

Doctor Ramirez continued to prattle on, making wild gesticulations that only made Alan more nervous; Raoul listened a moment, then continued. "You see, a serious electric shock is almost like a computer hard drive being scrambled."

The metaphor was lost on Alan.

"It mixes up the brain a little, to be frank. It causes things that weren't there before. Things like disorders and illness: especially in younger children. We've run an EEG and did an MRI earlier, and it looks like the shock has caused Tim to develop a seizure disorder called epilepsy. Epilepsy encompasses a range of different kinds of seizures. The one he had this morning with you was a Jacksonian seizure, or a seizure where a limb starts tingling."

Alan sat down suddenly, reigniting the pulsating baseline of pain in his back. He wasn't much concerned with it: his thoughts were devoted to Tim's diagnosis. "So he'll have seizures now."

"Not often, we hope. Epilepsy affects a large number of children, larger than you think, and there's a chance Tim will grow out of it when he reaches adolescence. For now though, we'd like to keep monitoring his neurological behavior and making sure he doesn't experience a more serious seizure before we release him back to general care." Raoul smiled optimistically in the hopes it would comfort the paleontologist, but Alan was far from comfort.

_ Epilepsy. _It was a thorny word, all bumping teeth and flapping lips. Almost as bad as _seizure, _which throttled and convulsed on the bridge of his tongue.

"You're welcome to see him, though," Raoul said.

Alan leaned forward to rock himself out of the chair and found he could not stand. The persistent thrum in his back collapsed into a demented, shrieking supernova of pain that would have driven a lesser man to tears; Alan Grant, however, merely grunted and sat back down. He had experienced much worse.

"Aw, man… looks like we should check you out, too." The intern pointed out Alan's hunched posture to Doctor Ramirez, who administered what sounded like quite the tongue-lashing. Then he summoned a nurse, pretty and immaculate in her strawberry scrubs, to fetch a wheelchair. The whole affair was quite embarrassing for Alan.

"Really, I'm fine," he insisted as Raoul brought the wheelchair over and offered a supportive hand. Alan managed to shift himself into the chair, however stressful it was on his aching back, without any help. "I hope I didn't cause any trouble."

"Trouble? Nah, Doctor Ramirez was just pissed because we didn't check you out enough. You didn't look like you were in a lot of pain yesterday, though. Did something happen, man?"

"No." It was the truth. Alan had just forgotten about the injury after the children were taken to Pediatrics and Ellie was administered the sedative. He didn't want to remember how he received it.

"Well, we'll look at it. You might have a slipped disk or something. Hopefully nothing serious. I'll call your fiancée and ask her to come up here in case we do some testing."

"That's alright," the paleontologist said quickly. He would much rather suffer through a few humiliating examinations alone than burden Ellie.

"Well, okay…" Raoul passed Alan on to the nurse for admittance, bid farewell, and thought mischievously to himself that he _would _phone up that nice fiancé of Alan's, punishment be damned. After all, they seemed like a nice family, them and their two darling children, and Raoul was loath to see the brave father endure this by himself.

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Ellie was justifiably worried.

She had woken up around seven-thirty to an empty room. Lex's side of the thin, pancakey mattress was still pleasantly warm though and the _splush _of the running water in the next room assured her that the girl had not wandered far. However, both Alan and Tim were gone, along with their shoes, and Ellie hadn't the faintest as to where they would go under such circumstances.

As she laid abed, watching volcanic slants of sunlight etch diamonds across the bed sheets, Ellie ruminated over whether or not things would be okay. She was alright. Her body no longer ached and the mental fractures that she had envisioned racing across her metaphorical mindscape like fault lines were beginning to heal. Between panic attacks, Lex seemed to be coping quite well with the situation; her cautious, but inarguably present optimism never failed to impress Ellie. Tim had handled the psychological repercussions well so far: it was just the physical consequences that were giving him grief. On the whole though, Ellie was amazed by their resilience and her own. She might scream awake a few more times, feel that jet of sulfurous breath on her neck in an empty room, but now, it felt less like a thing that was happening and more like a thing that _had _happened.

It was Alan she was slightly concerned for.

Her fiance was a strong man. She could remember, with piercing clarity, the day the rescue squad finally retrieved him from the stretches of desert on the outskirts of the badlands. His Jeep had careened off a ledge and dumped him unceremoniously in God's most fallow sandbox for no less than four days. The Alan they returned to her had two crushed ribs, three more cracked ones, and intense heat stroke, but he never betrayed any sign of weakness. He had winced once or twice, as if the sensation of his chest collapsing were merely minor twinges, and only squared his jaw a few times. Ellie had cried in spite of her best intentions to be just as unflappable; Alan, in the midst of being carted off to the nearest hospital, reached his hand out to her and shook his head.

_ No tears, _his eyes had reprimanded gently. _Not for me._

Ellie didn't doubt that Alan was capable of hurdling any obstacle. She knew he could. But she also knew that no force, natural or otherwise, could ever strangle a confession of pain out of Alan. The man was an impregnable fortress, a stony cliff face divulging no trace of the churning sea at its base. He would never admit to any distress, no matter how wracked with it he was. Typically, Ellie found herself admiring this trait; now, however, she only wanted Alan to be explicitly honest.

She wanted to know that he was alright.

Her reflection was interrupted by the entrance of the morning nurse. She was carrying a tray with two plastic dishes, one containing two red tablets, the other a yellow horse pill. Without a word, she placed the tray at the foot of the bed and left soundlessly, as if aware Ellie was seeking a little solitude. Grateful, the woman pounded her pill back and chased it with a sip of water.

Ellie then rolled onto her side and stared pensively out the window. It was oddly narrow, like a mail slot, providing her with but a sliver of the Costa Rican skyline. What she could perceive was verdant and exorbitantly lush against the lucidity of the sky. She ached to walk below the mossy canopy, to trace a hand along the tree trunks arching over her like the ribs of something huge and alien. Her body craved vitamin D and a cool breeze and the mere sensation of walking without some set destination in mind.

It was true what they said. After being in a hospital for more than two days, the crazies set in.

She wondered if Alan was itching with the crazies, too. And if he would even confess to it without Ellie coaxing it out of him.

The bathroom door creaked open and Lex stepped out, pink and clean from her shower. Her blonde waves were elegantly swept over one shoulder; her hospital gown—which was as flowered and papery as a grandmother's tablecloth—had been replaced with the blouse and jeans her grandfather had brought by before leaving. She looked healthy. And for whatever reason, the sight of Lex healthy and smiling illuminated the part of Ellie that had gone dim and stagnant since touching down in Costa Rica.

"Hey, sweetie. You look great."

Lex giggled and smoothed down her shirtfront. "Thanks. I feel so much better than yesterday and look!" She pointed to the railroad track stitches marching along the curve of her forehead. "They don't swell anymore."

"I'm so glad. I guess it's that Costa Rican shower water. It must work miracles."

"Definitely. Oh, ew—" Lex had noticed her dish of medicine and was appropriately disgusted. "Not again."

"Here." Ellie passed her the water glass and waited for her to choke down the Africa-sized pills before asking about the boys' whereabouts. "Did you see where Alan and Tim went?"

"They were gone when I woke up," Lex said, swiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Maybe they got breakfast? I'm sure they were hungry."

It was a reasonable explanation. Ellie coerced herself into accepting it, if only to banish the needling suspicion that something had occurred while she slept. "You're probably right. I was hoping they'd be here so we could go for a walk or something. It's getting so cramped and… oh, what's the word?"

"Stale?"

"Yeah! Stale…" The woman glimpsed longingly at the patch of greenery. Maybe the four of them, once reunited, could persuade their doctors into granting them permission to take a leisurely stroll around the hospital's courtyard. Even sun-dulled grass and concrete would be a welcome respite from her unremittingly grey surroundings. Just a single, cathartic breath of air, uncorrupted by lemony antiseptics and the industrial stench of non-biodegradable plastic, would be enough to part the last thunderheads in her mind and let the sunlight seep through. Just one single—

_ BRRRING!_

Ellie Sattler knew before she even registered the sound that this was not going to be a pleasant phone call. _You've got that Ellie sense of yours that can always tell what a phone call's going to be about, _Alan would say whenever the old dial-up in their trailer started clanging.

She hoped to God that she was wrong this time.

"Hello?"

.

.

"It's a herniated disc slip. At one point, he received trauma to the spinal cord area here and that left some damage. The X-ray also showed a straining of the anterior ligaments here—see, near the arm. Those can be healed with a sling and some physical therapy when you guys get back to the states, but the disc… we're looking at surgery here. It's minimally invasive, but if we don't do something about this injury, you could be in a serious deal of pain for the rest of your life. Doctor Ramirez would like to have you in the OR by tonight, just to get it over with and get you back home as soon as possible."

Raoul finally paused to catch his breath and shell out a few more sunflower seeds into his half-extended palm. The two dazed paleontologists seized this rare breadth of silence as an opportunity to unleash a torrent of questions.

"Surgery?"

"Will the arm heal straight?"

"Isn't tonight a little soon?"

The exhausted translator swallowed and momentarily reconsidered his career options. As he relayed their questions to Doctor Ramirez, Ellie glanced askance at Alan and traced the slightly wilted length of his arm and the curve of his back with her eyes. How long had he hid his injuries? Since the helicopter? She began to chastise herself for not being vigilant enough, then reminded herself she would've never been able to pry the truth out of him. Alan could be slightly infuriating that way.

Raoul caught up with his superior's medical tirade. "Okay, okay, okay… um, yes, the hernia is noticeably severe and is most likely going to cause leg and groin pain, as well as bladder incontinence, if we don't remove a small portion of the disc. He wants to have the surgery as soon as possible to reduce the pain and get you prescribed to some painkillers before you get shipped out of here. And the arm will heal straight as long as you rest it and get it checked out."

Ellie couldn't help herself. "What would've happened if you hadn't done the X-rays?"

The intern proudly fielded this question without consulting Ramirez. "He probably would've exacerbated both injuries until he was in chronic pain and that might've made surgery much more difficult."

Alan said nothing.

"We'll get you re-admitted and prepped for surgery. Don't worry. Doctor Munez is the surgeon here and he's great."

"Thank you," Ellie said gratefully.

"No problem. You two get settled and I'll have a nurse come up in a few minutes."

No sooner had the two men left did Alan give his fiance a nettled look. "I know what you're thinking, Ellie."

"Alan, how could you be so…?" She fumbled for a word that could entirely encompass her joint fury and concern. "Just—how could be so stubborn?! You put yourself at risk and for what? Look at the price you almost paid, Alan!"

"Don't turn this around on me," he replied stormily. Glimmers of fresh anger twinkled in the dark undertones of his voice. "You would've done the same, Ellie."

"Oh, bullshit," she snapped, startling them both, "I wouldn't let you worry by hiding something so painful."

"I didn't tell you _because _I didn't want you to worry," he said in frustration.

She fished for a response and came up empty. Alan was wrong in attempting to mask his pain, but the selfless nature of it made her feel a touch guilty for immediately jumping on his case. Unable to express her conflicted feelings, she instead sighed and pecked his lightly peppered cheek. "Oh, Alan… what am I going to do with you?"

"Wrap me in bubble wrap." It was a lame stab at humor. Ellie laughed anyway.

"That doesn't sound too bad."

Alan was loath to disturb the peace again, but this was a pressing matter he had to tend to. "Ellie, I don't want you to tell the kids about this."

The smile she had been cultivating collapsed like a cheap beach chair. "Alan, the kids deserve to know."

"This morning I got a call from Hammond. He's not coming back, Ellie. He's got all of InGen barking at his heels and that means he has to make a lot of people shut up very quickly before they find out he was responsible for the deaths of two men. He asked me… he asked _us _to take care of Lex and Tim until we get back home. And I took him up on it, because I don't want to see them get hurt again, Ellie. I'm not going to tell the kids and that's final."

It broke her heart to agree, but Ellie knew she couldn't persuade Alan otherwise, not if he thought it would somehow harm the children. She brushed a tear from her eye and thought of the world outside again, this time longing for a cool mountain peak where she could scream into the mist without ever being heard.

.

.

The hospital had only one English film and that was a battered VHS of _Beauty and the Beast. _A nurse had thoughtfully brought it by Tim's new room; her kind gesture was rewarded with a rush of earnest gratitude from both him and Lex, who hadn't left her brother's side since rushing up to the ICU with Ellie.

The two of them were watching it now, mollified by the familiarity of the scene. Lex had gotten a VHS of the movie for her birthday and watched it incessantly since, even though she was quick to denounce her love for it around her friends. Tim, who had weathered this obsession as well as her _The Little Mermaid _phase, knew better. It was the movie she watched whenever their parents fought. He supposed the fantasy of it, the triumph of love over death and malignancy, made her feel safe. As Belle took the Beast's clumsy paw for their first dance, Tim found himself hoping the movie was making her as happy as it always did.

Belle and the Beast strolled through the grandeur of the castle, flushed with love. It made him think of Doctor Grant and Ellie.

"Timmy," Lex said abruptly, "why do you think Grandpa left us here?"

"He probably had work. Doctor Grant said he had business at home."

She pressed her lips together, brow furrowed uncertainly. "But… he left us here. Grandpa said he'd never leave us alone, remember? That even though Mom and Dad were getting a divorce and might not always be there, he'd be there. Why did he lie?"

Tim didn't know what to say. He was quick to defend his grandfather, but Lex had made a point that resonated and piqued his own suspicions. "I think he got in trouble because of the park."

A watery burst of a sob escaped her. "I hate that stupid park."

That was where he found their paths diverging. As much as Tim hated thinking about what he had seen and felt on the island, some lasting note of wonder kept him from despising his grandfather's masterpiece. It probably hadn't been right, but… it had been beautiful in its own way. For that, Tim could never blame his grandfather. "I don't hate it."

"Why?! You almost died!" Lex's eyes were voltaic with unshed tears.

And so he had. This, however, hadn't reached him the way it had with Lex. "This wasn't all Grandpa's fault. He didn't mean for it to happen."

"He built it, though! It was all his idea and he built it even though he probably knew something bad might happen. Timmy, that wasn't right! Don't you get it? Grandpa did this and a lot of people got hurt. And he didn't even…" Her lower lip quivered menacingly. "He didn't even say 'goodbye'."

Onscreen, Gaston was rallying the townspeople to slaughter the Beast. Tim could remember being frightened by this part when he was younger, frightened by the hulking Gaston and his greasy, manipulative charm.

And Lex thought Grandpa was like that now.

"I hate that stupid park…" she said quietly, her voice tremulous and weepy. "I hate that stupid park."

But as shivers raced up her spine and fear seized her lungs, Tim realized Lex was right. Grandpa had done something wrong. And he couldn't even face them in the end.

Outside, evening rain began to patter lightly against the rooftops.

.

.

The anesthesia had no detectable scent, but some distant part of Alan's brain associated it with the plastic, medicinal smell of the dentist's office.

The assistant surgeon leaned over him, nothing more than a fleshy smudge. "Okay, Doctor Grant, we're gonna count down from ten. Ten…"

He thought of Ellie, her hair loose and violently tousled by the rare spits of Montana wind, freckles blazing across her cheekbones.

"Nine…"

Lex safe in the crook of his arm, eyes regarding him as though he were the keeper of the universe.

"Eight…"

Tim drawing in breath on his own, body seizing with life under his shaky hands.

"Seven…"

He loved—

.

.

_"Oh, Ellie, they're noisy, they're messy, they're expensive… they smell."_

**a/n: **I did a shit job editing this, lol. anyway hope you enjoyed this overdramatic episode of "alan is a nerd and cares so much about his adorable kids and ellie". one more chapter after this.


	3. III

III

**a/n: ***windmill-kicks your door in* I'm back and just in time for the new movie. get wrecked on dinosaurs and small, adorable children in danger. the Spanish at the beginning is a little wonky. translation is: "he's having a seizure!" "get in here!" "I need twenty grams of benzodiazepines". last installment.

_"Oh, I'm sorry… just give me your hand."_

_._

_._

"Esta teniendo un ataque!"

"Entra aqui!"

"Necesito veinte gramos de benzodiacepinas."

.

.

The first time he woke up, he was promptly harangued by a nurse who didn't seem to understand he had yet to pick up any Spanish. He was only able to manage a reedy, ghostly whisper of "where?" before the fog settled back over his brain

The second time had shook a little clarity into his shaken snow globe mind. Doctor Ramirez was at his bedside and armed with an absurdly big syringe that—in Alan's opinion—warranted a sluggish fit of panic. Though he didn't feel the needle enter his body, he saw it retracting from his arm like a mosquito that had eaten its fill. Feeling justifiably betrayed and hopelessly doped up, he allowed himself to grey out again. This whole anesthesia business was becoming rather tiresome.

When Alan Grant woke again, he knew it would be the last time. The gauzy shroud over his vision had been lifted; his brain felt as though it could possibly send enough signals to move his arm (which was now branded with a purplish pinprick where he'd been injected). His lower back, which had ached with methodical, unrelenting intensity in his drug dreams, was blissfully numb. He almost felt human.

He glanced around the room, trying to recognize his surroundings and failing miserably, when he spotted a blonde smudge in the armchair across from him. "Ellie?"

"No." Lex leaned forward, looking slightly embarrassed. "It's me."

A joy like he had never known swelled over him. Alan had hoped Ellie wouldn't be the first to visit him, if only to spare her the grief of watching her fiancee struggle to form coherent sentences while doctors plugged him full of painkillers. Ever since the Montana accident, he had been vigilant about divulging signs of weakness: it was just too uncomfortable for him. Allowing her to sit with him during the examination had been nothing short of excruciating. And he missed Lex terribly. Between Tim's diagnosis and his own trip to Dizzyland, he hadn't seen as much as her as he liked.

Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail that emphasized the sweet delicacy of her face and revealed the stitches marching across her forehead. The swelling had finally ebbed, restoring the healthiness to her visage that he had sorely missed. She smiled shyly down at him. "How're you feeling, Alan?"

"A little drugged up," he admitted, struggling to pull himself into an upright position; the wires and tubes that had taken up residence in his arm tugged painfully. "Never do anesthesia, Lex."

She spared him a pity giggle. "You bet."

Alan couldn't think of much to say, which he chalked up to the lingering effects of the dope. The incessant part of himself that insisted on dissecting everything suggested that it was his reluctance to admit that he cared more about the children than anything in his life. He was afraid to speak; if he said something thickheaded—as he so often did—he could potentially lose her. After everything they had survived, he feared failing her in the safety of the real world.

She hadn't wept for her father in the Jeep for nothing.

Lex didn't seem to mind the silence. She had brought up a sudoku page from her room and continued to fill it out while Alan contemplated his quandary and the flannel taste in his mouth. Finally, she set it aside and sighed. "I guess you want to know how things are."

This had failed to occur to Alan until now. "Of course, uh, I mean, I've been out for… uh…"

"Almost a day and a half," Lex answered with a grin. "The doctor told us you could be released tomorrow if you had some appointments when you got home. Ellie and me got released today. Timmy had… he had another seizure. It looked like a seizure on TV, where you just kind of flop around and can't talk. So the doctors want to watch him for twenty-four hours. But he can go home with us tomorrow if he gets a prescription when we get home."

Alan sat back against the pillow, feeling slightly overwhelmed. He didn't know whether to feel ecstatic that he could finally leave this hellish hospital or terrified for Tim. _Just like one on TV. _He thought of _Cujo, _where the little boy had dissolved into a convulsive state shortly before dying; Alan quickly forced himself to stop thinking about that. "That's… that's awful, Lex. I'm sorry you had to see it."

"I just want to go home," she said softly.

"Don't worry." He extended his hand to her; she accepted it, squeezing his callused fingers as if they were all that were keeping her grounded. "We'll be home soon."

"Alan, will we see you again?" She asked this so urgently that, in the midst of his surprise, he couldn't supply a proper answer. Her eyes glinted with a shrink-wrap of tears.

Would he? Alan had acclimated himself to this niche so completely that he couldn't imagine abandoning it. He couldn't imagine Lex and Tim being separated from him for an hour, let alone for a lifetime. But if he and Ellie returned to Montana… if they picked up the shards of their life and moved on… would they see the children? Would they collectively move on from this?

How could he move on from his family?

Alan knew it was probably a little unethical to consider the children his own when he had only known them for a few days. But his mind was unable to conjure up a future without them, a future without attending games and recitals and graduations and weddings and birthdays. He wanted to watch Lex walk across the stage—or, better yet, deliver her valedictorian speech from the podium. He wanted to bring Tim to the dig site and teach him about the thing he loved so dearly and tear his bandana in half so they could both bandage their callused palms. He wanted to be there with Ellie on his arm, to pass her a tissue when her eyes inevitably watered, to take everyone out for ice cream afterwards. He had never wanted anything more in his life.

Finally, he said: "Of course you will, Lex. How could I not?"

She sniffled and gripped his hand all the tighter. "I don't want you to leave us."

"Lex." Alan cradled her cheek in his free hand, for once not feeling uncomfortable. There was no reason to now. "I will never leave you. I made a promise that I wouldn't, remember? I meant it."

Then she was on him, crying and hugging at his neck. Alan ran what he hoped was a soothing hand down her heaving back and wondered if he and Ellie might one day have children as amazing as the Murphy siblings.

Until that day though, he would just have to be there for them.

.

.

"And what's his name again?"

"That's Jose Cortez. He's not good, but they let 'em play because, um, because he's got a sponsorship and his wife is some big movie star."

Ellie smiled in amusement as the men dashed around the bases in the wake of what Tim grandly referred to as a "grand slam". Baseball definitely wasn't her forte, but he seemed to know enough about the game and its players to warrant a doctorate in the subject. Tim, more alert than he had been in days, was braced against Ellie's side in the bed they had designated the "living room" of his little space. The chair in the corner was the bedroom; the sagging end table was the dining room. And the television was, of course, the entertainment room.

"And who pitches again?"

"Diego Martinez. He's really good. I have his baseball card, but only because I traded my Nicolas Gutierrez one for it." Ellie decided from his grave tone that this had been an enormous decision for the eight-year-old.

They watched in comfortable silence as the score volleyed between the teams, constantly shifting in such a way that Ellie didn't think was feasible for a slow game like baseball. When a round of Spanish commercials temporarily ruled the broadcast, she yawned and stretched her arms high over her head. "Do you go to a lot of baseball games?"

Tim's expression fell so swiftly that Ellie thought for a terrifying moment that he was about have another seizure. "No. Dad usually takes Lex because she plays softball and stuff, and I don't."

Ellie realized she had struck a nerve. "Oh, I see… well, do you do other things with your dad?"

"Not really. He thinks dinosaurs are lame. We went to some museums last year, but Lex said it was only 'cause he wanted to make my mom mad. They're getting a divorce," he added quietly, as if the word were taboo.

She squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and nodded with a confidence that made him turn his face up to her. "My parents got a divorce when I was eleven. I hated them for putting me through it. I threatened to run away if they actually separated, but… well, that doesn't work. And they tried to win me over with presents and trips, so that I would play favorites and pick one parent over the other. Is that what's going on?"

Tim could only nod; he didn't trust his voice yet.

"Do you think it's your fault?"

Again a nod, this time accompanied by an unshed tear. "Maybe if I did sports like Lex, Dad wouldn't want to leave so bad. He doesn't even care that he's leaving. And he wants us to pick favorites, but I… I don't wanna pick favorites. I want both of them to stay."

Ellie gently swiped the tear away with her thumb, feeling her heart break for him. She had blamed herself too when her parents had made the official announcement: it was difficult not to under such hostile circumstances. When there no other discernible cause for unhappiness between parents, that left only oneself to blame. "I know, Tim. But it's not your fault at all. It's not Lex's fault. Sometimes, parents just stop loving each other like they did and decide it's better to separate so that they can be happier. But you shouldn't have to pick sides. That's not your job. Your job is to make sure you and Lex are safe and happy."

"I can do that," Tim said with a tentative smile.

"I know you can," Ellie reaffirmed, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "Now, you better catch me up, because I don't have a clue what they're doing now. Who's winning?"

.

.

Ian visited them during dinner. Alan and Tim had been given clearance by Doctor Ramirez to have a proper meal, and were enjoying their newfound liberation from IV's with coffee and grilled cheese, respectively.

Always one to make a theatrical entrance, Ian rammed the door open with his bad leg's coffin-thick cast and wheeled in nonchalantly as if he hadn't just given the lot of them quadruple heart attacks. "And what have we here? The average all-American family dinner?"

"Ian!" The children leapt up to flock around the man, who basked in the glow of their affection with a smarmy grin. Alan still didn't know why children were so attracted to the likes of Ian Malcolm, but he wasn't in the mood to be petty. In fact, he found himself smiling begrudgingly at Ian's effortless charm. He could almost tolerate him.

"Now, now, I don't want any wheelchair sympathy," he announced as the siblings bombarded him with questions about his condition. "I just want to be pushed down the hallway as fast as possible. No questions asked. This may not be the last time I'm in a wheelchair, but I'd like the first time to be memorable."

Lex and Tim clambered for the chance to carry out Ian's wish; their voices carried across the corridor as they pushed him out of the room. Ellie promptly began to giggle hysterically.

Alan coerced himself not to laugh, which was quite an arduous task considering Ellie was practically snorting now. "I'll never know why that man is so beloved."

"Oh, Alan," she sighed, hiccupping. "Don't question it. Ian's just… Ian. And there's something great about that."

Aware that Ian would keep the children occupied for as long as his patience lasted, the two doctors unfolded themselves across the "living room". Alan lifted his sore arm to Ellie; she snuggled against his side and shivered with absolute delight as his hand closed over her forearm. It was a position they invariably fell into when together: at the movies, in bed, even at the dig site while the generator booted up (although that version was typically a little more modest). Ellie had long ago decided that her personal definition of an oasis was Alan Grant's arms.

"I can't believe how well this turned out," she said, tracing a hand lazily across his chest.

He chucked lightly. "All things considered."

"Right. All things considered."

"The kids adjusted well, don't you think?"

"All things considered," Ellie teased, eking another laugh out of her fiancé. "But you're right. Aside from all the medical drama, they've… well, they've adjusted."

Alan felt the conversation shift and cautiously approached the subject that was on both their minds. "Ellie… are you worried about leaving the kids?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation. "I think we've gotten a little too attached, Alan. I'm looking at them like they're my own children and its… well, I guess it's not right."

"Lex cried today because she was afraid we'd leave them forever. I told her that of course we'd see them again, but how? After everything…" Alan trailed off. He loathed to perceive the situation so selfishly, but it was the truth: he doubted he could visit the kids without some part of himself screaming "they're your family!" from the metaphorical rooftops of his mind.

"I think the feeling's mutual. Tim told me that their parents are getting divorced and, from the sound of it, things aren't exactly pleasant at their house right now. They're attached too. And I don't… I don't want to leave them, Alan. I want to be a part of their lives. And I know you do too," Ellie added, sparing him the embarrassment of verbally agreeing with the sentiment.

"Of course I want to be a part of their lives. But how big a part? How far can we go before we're intruding?"

Ellie hadn't deliberated that angle of the situation yet. She knew that the Murphy siblings had biological parents and that Alan and she, perfect strangers, had no right to boldly invade their lives when their family dynamic was already balancing so precariously on the verge of catastrophe. "Well… maybe we could be godparents. Or an honorary aunt and uncle. Something where we'd see them often, but not so much that it felt invasive."

_ Godparent. _It still had the word "parent" in it. For whatever reason though, this didn't bother Alan: if anything, he was overjoyed to hold the title. "Godparent. I like the sound of that."

"Me too." Ellie pecked his cheek affectionately. "But let's hold out until we meet their parents. I think we need to get introductions out of the way before we start putting ourselves in the family tree."

"You'll always think about it that way, though," Alan said, his tone so sober that Ellie glanced back up in surprise. "In the way we aren't supposed to."

He had been wounded by the park. The surgical scar branding the small of his back and the way he bristled whenever a scream ripped through the hospital was evidence enough of that. But he had been wounded deeper, far beyond what could be snipped away and stitched together. Alan had been given two children that weren't his own to love. That cut deep: she knew because the pain was occasionally unbearable.

"Of course I will."

.

.

The private jet arrived the next day at three in the afternoon. Hammond, foreseeing some minor inconveniences for his guests, had a package sent that was delivered to them earlier in the day. It contained clean clothes for all of them, as well as some much-needed toiletries, an envelope labeled "$1500", and a note from Hammond.

Alan had reluctantly scanned the note while Ellie helped the children dress and brush their teeth. It included a confirmation that Hammond had alerted the children's parents, who would meet them at the jet port, and that a second jet had been arranged for the doctors. According to Hammond, the case had gone "just peachy" and there would be more money in the near future, primarily in the form of dig funds. Alan hadn't been able to bring himself to conjure up any enthusiasm about this promise; after all, it would be just like Hammond to never follow-through.

They boarded, armed with well wishes from the entire hospital staff and an absolutely exhausted Raoul, and found themselves just as relieved as they had been upon fleeing the island. It wasn't long before Tim had his head tucked in Alan's lap; soon after, Lex struck up a similar arrangement with Ellie's shoulder.

Once Ellie dozed off, Alan found himself inexplicably happy. He dreaded the road to recovery, which was bound to be wrought with obstacles of every conceivable shape and size, and the inevitable media hounding. Digging would never be the same. Montana would never be the same. He would be leaving behind the two people he held closest to his heart.

As they flew steadily across the verdant landscapes below, Alan found himself smiling in spite of these things. He knew Lex and Tim could never be his own children, nor would he ever dare to label them as such. But the four of them would always be a family and nothing—neither dinosaurs nor divorce papers—would ever change that.

.

.

_The End _

**a/n: **I literally wrote this whole thing in one sitting, holy shit. well I couldn't have done it without you guys. I can't believe how much attention this story received and I'm certain that if it weren't for your kindness, I wouldn't have been able to finish this story. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did and that you'll keep loving jurassic park. until next time.


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